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“You know what, this isn’t a good idea after all,” Danny decided, as he stood in front of the entrance to the mediocre local hotel that was hosting the Casper High Class of 2008 10-year Reunion.
“Danny, come on. You have to socialize sometimes,” Sam told him, ruffling his hair; she was a full head taller than him now, making the gesture easy. She wore a purple-and-black sleeveless dress that accentuated her curves, the style a little less goth than she had worn in high school but still something her parents likely wouldn’t approve of, just as she liked it. Her long black hair was done in a braid that was tied off with a hair tie decorated with a pompom spider.
“I do socialize!” Danny argued. He was wearing a simple v-neck medium-blue t-shirt with black jeans and yellow converse; probably a little too casual for the event, but he didn’t own many dressy things. The fact that the shirt lacked some sort of image or logo was the best he could do on short notice; his friends had registered him for this event and didn’t tell him until they showed up at his house to drag him there not a half hour prior.
“Yeah, as Phantom,” Tucker, now lanky and a full foot and a half taller than Danny, said, wearing a button-down green plaid three-quarter-sleeve shirt and black dress pants, with his hair done in short dreadlocks. “Fenton’s gotta socialize too.”
“Fenton still looks 14.”
“So does Phantom,” Sam pointed out.
Danny sighed. “Yeah but Phantom’s a ghost. That’s normal. People expect that. Fenton is allegedly human. Humans generally age. This is going to end up in a reveal, mark my words.”
Tucker shrugged. “Would that be so bad? It’s not like you can hide from everyone forever.”
“I didn’t. My parents figured it out.” Danny hated that memory; a day after graduation, his parents had confronted him about it. They’d figured things out over a year before then, but much like Jazz had decided to let him tell them on his own; yet after Danny declared he wasn’t going to college they decided they had to have a conversation, which included his lack of aging and what could be done about it.
Danny ended up doing college online, getting a degree in ecto-engineering so he could help his parents with their work given that he refused to leave the house as Fenton—after all, he should be 27 now, yet looked identical to when he was 14, eternally the same as he had been at the time of his accident. Thankfully his parents allowed him to keep living with them; meanwhile he spent more and more time as Phantom, only leaving the house in that form.
The town generally liked Phantom now and most people happily interacted with him, so it wasn’t a bad gig. Teenagers and children especially liked hanging out with him at the arcade and skate park and other places; they still saw him as one of them, which he technically still was, given his unaging applied to his brain as well. A truly eternal teenager, like all the other teenage ghosts. Sometimes Danny wondered if he should just call himself a ghost at this point; the heartbeat and other human quirks didn’t seem to matter much when he had such quintessentially ghost traits like immortality and needing to absorb the ambient ectoplasm produced by either the Ghost Zone or a nearby portal—well that or take ecto-pills his parents had developed, which he did use when they went on research trips longer than a week (the length he could be away from a place with a portal before feeling weaker).
“I mean, from people who don’t see you every day,” Tucker clarified.
“Come on, let’s go in,” Sam said, taking Danny by the hand.
Danny let Sam lead him inside.
The first person the three ran into, just inside the hotel lobby, was one of the people Danny least wanted to run into that night: Dash Baxter, apparently taking a shift at the registration table; he was one of the people who had organized the event. Paulina was standing by the table chatting with him.
“Whoa! Sam Manson?” Dash asked, jaw dropping open. He whistled. “You got hot! Like, I’ve seen your photo in the paper and stuff, but I thought that was just the photoshop retouches; didn’t expect it to be reality too.” He was wearing dress pants and a grey button-down under his black-and-orange Cincinnati Bengals jacket—he was one of the rare high school football stars that actually made it to the NFL.
“Dash!” Paulina, in an elegant pink dress and long hair curled, chided with a scowl. She was very similar looking to her high school self, just taller and a bit more voluptuous—including around the middle in such a way that made Danny wonder if she was possibly pregnant, but he wasn’t going to ask just in case he was wrong. Paulina continued, “You are supposed to stop flirting with people once you’re married!” She tapped her diamond wedding ring with her finger.
“Oh, like that’s ever stopped you,” Dash quipped back.
“True,” Paulina agreed with a small mischievous smile. Then, her eyes fell on Danny. “Huh. So, you and Fenton had a kid already?” she asked Sam.
“What?” Sam hissed. “We’re not even dating!” They had dated briefly, but when Sam began growing up and Danny didn’t, things just got too awkward. Sam claimed she didn’t mind, but Danny could tell it was getting to her. Thankfully their friendship itself hadn’t waivered, even when Sam began actively looking to date others (so far no one stuck though; apparently everyone was ‘too boring’, which, yeah, considering she grew up in a haunted town fighting ghosts with ghost-fighting friends, that made sense); on his part, Danny was not in the dating scene at all, given humans were pretty much out of the picture now and he definitely wasn’t ready to date ghosts.
“How old do you think I look?!” Danny asked, mildly offended. He’d expected, if anything, to get called a little brother, not his best friend’s child.
“Like, a teenager, duh. So he’s not your kid?” Paulina confirmed.
“No!” Sam proclaimed. “I’d have to have gotten pregnant at, like, ten or something to have a teenage son!”
“And I’m 27, for your information,” Danny said testily, crossing his arms. “See? I told you this was a bad idea, Sam.”
“Wait,” Paulina said, eyes widening. “Fenton!?”
“Yup,” Danny confirmed, tone flat.
“Oh my gosh! No one’s seen you in, like, a decade!” Paulina proclaimed. “We were starting to think you died.”
Danny tensed. Okay, that hit a little too close to home. “Well, er, I’m still here,” he said with a small chuckle. “So, we need nametags, right?”
“Oh, right, here,” Dash said, shuffling through the pile until he found them. He had been oddly quiet; had he guessed why Danny looked so young?
Meanwhile, Paulina was now staring at Danny with a calculating expression. Finally she asked, “What’s your secret to looking so young? Because my beauty company would absolutely love to know it. Is it, like, one of your parents’ inventions?”
Technically, it was, and the ‘secret’ was death, but Danny couldn’t tell her that, so instead he said, “No. Plus, it’s not just my parents inventing things anymore—I work for them too now, got an engineering degree and everything. It’s a family business.”
“Oh no way!” Paulina said. “That’s actually pretty neat. My company’s in New York so I haven’t been around much, but I hear the business has been really thriving lately.”
“Oh, yeah, it has,” Danny said, although that was mostly because of yet another major incident involving a powerful ghost five years prior, this one a mad scientist ghost who managed to, via a strange combination of science and occult ritual magic, open quite a few permanent portals in the Great Lakes region, all which no one could figure out how to shut down, making quite a few other areas in both the United States and Canada just as haunted as Amity Park. That ghost had been captured and imprisoned by the Observants, given that it had murdered over thirty humans to create those portals.
The fact that opening permanent portals required a human sacrifice had been a real shock to Danny, because that meant he had been such to get his parents’ portal to work; thankfully though the sacrifice didn’t need to be inside the portal, thus no more halfas were created from that incident. Danny pointedly ignored the fact that this also meant that Vlad had murdered at least three people, as he had created at least three portals.
Anyway, Fentonworks supplied all those newly-haunted towns with protective gear, plus were now the leading ghost researchers—not hunters anymore—and had revolutionized the field of ecto-science with their new theories on ghosts that debunked most of the old research, making things better for Danny and all the ghosts around. The GIW had even rewritten their policies in light of all the new research, no longer attacking all ghosts, with Phantom being off their radar entirely.
“Here’s your name tags,” Dash said. “It all looks correct, right?”
The three checked their tags, confirming that both their names and jobs were accurate—Tucker’s listed ‘Forensic Technologist’, a field he had essentially been forced into after he was caught hacking the wrong government agency (due to his skills, the FBI offered a deal to work for them as a form of probation, although he couldn’t list that he worked for them); Sam’s proudly listed ‘State Congresswoman’ (everyone there knew that though; she was one of the biggest advocates for ghost rights as well as environmental preservation, having already combined the two to create a highly-controversial ghost-wildlife sanctuary in a forest near Lake Michigan); and Danny’s of course listed Fentonworks Engineer.
Paulina peered at their nametags. “You’re not going to put the company you work for?” she asked Tucker.
“It’s classified,” Tucker said automatically.
“Ugh, lame.”
“Paulina, we know which organization he works for,” Dash said tiredly. “He helped with Star’s case, remember?”
“Oh, yes, he did do that, didn’t he?”
Dash shook his head in exasperation. “You seriously gotta lay off the wine, honey.”
With that, Sam, Tucker, and Danny nodded farewell to Paulina and Dash, who were now arguing about Paulina’s drinking habits, and headed to the hotel’s ballroom, where about twenty people had already gathered.
“I didn’t expect this many people to actually show up,” Danny commented. There had still been at least ten, maybe fifteen, name tags left on the table. Danny was pretty sure their class only had fifty or sixty people left by the end of their senior year, despite there being about eighty at the start of Danny’s freshman year—many families had moved away from Amity Park during the first few years the portal had been open, and only recently had the population finally returned to where it had been before then.
“Oh, hey, if it isn’t Foley!” a pretty girl with short blonde hair said; she was holding a toddler with the same color hair, who was wearing a blue sundress that matched her own. The child obscured her name tag.
“Oh, hey, Star!” Tucker greeted. “Couldn’t get a babysitter?”
Star sighed. “Unfortunately, no,” she said.
Oh, right; Star had a kid. Danny recalled Tucker telling him about that; it was strange to think people his age that he knew were already having kids. Her husband was some bigwig CEO, and their little girl had been kidnapped the previous year and held for ransom; Tucker’s division had handled the case, and now the two and Star’s husband were friends, keeping in touch online. Danny suspected that the issue was less ‘couldn’t get a babysitter’ and more ‘still was afraid to let her kid out of her sight’.
“What’s her name?” Danny asked.
“Fenton?” Star asked, clearly surprised. “Huh. You look…”
“The same, yes, I know,” Danny said with a sigh.
“Right… Well, anyway, this is Emily!” Star said brightly, then said in a cutesy voice to the girl, “Can you say ‘hi’, Emily?”
When the girl shook her head, Danny smiled at her, ignoring the irritation at realizing he didn’t have to bend down to talk to the girl, the way Star carried her putting her face at Danny’s eye level given that Star was the same height as Sam. “That’s okay, Emily; you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. I’m Danny; I knew your Mommy a long time ago. It’s very nice to meet you.”
Emily blinked at Danny, then smiled back. “Hello,” she said shyly, then held out her hand. When Danny held her hand gently, she giggled, and said, “Danny is cold.”
Danny resisted wincing at that. Yeah, although not as cold as when in ghost form, his skin was still pretty cold in human form, being a halfa with an ice core, but it was a little uncomfortable when others noticed.
“Emily, that’s rude!” Star chided.
“It’s okay,” Danny said. “My skin does run cold.” He let go of Emily’s hand, and the girl made a disappointed sound.
“Huh; she really seems to like you,” Star said, surprised. “She’s usually very shy, especially after… Well, you probably heard the news.”
“Danny’s really good with kids,” Sam said, to Danny’s embarrassment. Yeah, because he technically still was one, forever.
“I guess,” Danny said. “Anyway, I think I’m gonna go check out the food,” he said before heading off; Sam followed, but Tucker stayed to talk to Star more. It seemed her husband had been too busy to come with her, and Tucker promised him beforehand to keep her company some. Danny didn’t really mind—he saw Tucker often enough, as he was stationed in the Chicago field office, which was a short fly away for Danny.
“Could you get me a drink?” Danny asked Sam. There was an open bar, but looking like he did there was no way the bartender would serve him.
“Whiskey sour?” Sam confirmed, and headed off when Danny nodded.
Danny wandered over to inspect the food; it was quite a fancy spread of hor d'oeuvres, finger foods, and mini-desserts. He picked up a pig-in-a-blanket, one of the few non-dessert things he actually recognized other than the basic cheese and veggie platters, and popped it in his mouth.
“Those are my favorites, too,” someone nearby said, and Danny turned to see someone he didn’t recognize at all. He looked up; he vaguely recognized the face, but otherwise couldn’t tell who the lean muscular male in a fancy-cut black suit over a mauve shirt with long hair dyed hot pink tied into a ponytail was. Not without checking the nametag, which revealed…
“Kwan?!” Danny proclaimed.
Kwan chuckled. “Yup, that’s me,” he said; thankfully he didn’t comment on Danny’s lack of aging, instead continuing, “I know, big change from high school! The pink hair’s the result of a lost bet; I said if the troupe made it to AGT, I’d do it, and somehow they managed it! Of course, they were eliminated in the round right before the ones aired on TV, but they still technically made it, so I had to do it.”
“Troupe?” Danny asked, then realized. “Oh, right, your nametag says ‘aerial coach/troupe manager’.” He wasn’t quite sure what that meant though.
“Yup! I discovered circus in college, and it really stuck with me,” Kwan said, seeming excited and proud to tell someone about this. “I took classes at a circus school in Philly, first just as a fun way to stay in shape while going to college near there but then I realized I just plain love it. Eventually I started coaching at the same school—I’m already a little too old for actually doing it professionally myself, or at least I will be by the time I get good enough, but man, you should see some of these kids! This one girl has been doing both silks and trapeze since she was in preschool, and you’d think she practically lived in the air! I also manage the school’s children’s aerial circus troupe, which is for the kids that want to be professionals someday. They mostly do free shows so they can get the experience of performing in front of a large audience. We’re doing a show in Amity Park soon, actually, at the YMCA! You should come!”
“Oh. Maybe,” Danny said. “That does sound like fun.” He hadn’t had the best experiences with circuses in the past, so hadn’t gone to any circus shows in a long while, but a children’s troupe run by a former classmate was very different from Circus Gothica. Maybe he could show up as Phantom. “You sound like you really love your job!”
“Oh yeah, it’s the best,” Kwan said, grinning. “I never thought I’d love either circus or teaching this much, but here I am!” He laughed. “If my high school self saw me now, he’d probably be mortified.”
“Maybe, but as long as you’re having fun, what’s it matter?” Danny said. “Besides, being in the air’s a lot of fun! At least, it sounds like it would be,” he quickly amended; people didn’t know he could fly.
Kwan gave Danny a suspiciously knowing look, but before he could reply, Sam returned, handing Danny his drink.
Then there was a shocked gasp of “Danny?!” followed by someone rushing over, who Danny immediately recognized as Valerie. She’d physically grown a lot since high school too, but Danny already knew what she looked like as she also had stayed around town, going to the local community college and then joining her dad’s company, which he’d manage to build up again, now doing specifically ghost security. She and Phantom now had a kinda-truce, and sometimes worked together, although they generally stayed away from each other despite both working to protect the town. After all, she still didn’t know Danny was Phantom, and he had been hoping she wouldn’t figure it out if he avoided her outside of business. He had a feeling his luck just ran out on that front.
“Oh great; her,” Sam groaned.
“Oh my gosh! You’re actually here,” Valerie said with incredulity. She was in black dress pants and a plain red blouse; ever since becoming a ghost hunter, she’d always opted for simpler more practical clothes that her suit could easily manifest over.
“Oh, hey, Red,” Danny greeted, then winced. “I mean, Val.” So much for keeping his cover.
Valerie blinked. “Red…?” She looked Danny over, then her eyes widened with a panicked realization. She grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him out a nearby side door into the hotel’s gardens; Sam tried to follow but Danny waved her away. This conversation was personal.
“Why did you call me Red,” Valerie demanded upon releasing her hold on Danny, once they were far enough away and concealed behind a hedge. Her tone was tense, but less angry than expected. It actually seemed to be edged with dread and worry, like she had concluded why but didn’t want to believe it.
“Your shirt is red?” Danny tried.
“BS.” Valerie sighed, softening her tone. “Danny, only two people call me ‘Red’. One is a girl, and the other is…” she trailed off, apparently not wanting to voice it.
“Phantom,” Danny finished, then sighed and crossed his arms. “You’ve always been the most clever of the ghost hunters.”
“So it’s true then? You’re Phantom?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s true. I’m Phantom.”
Valerie took a deep breath, processing that, then asked, “Who else knows? I assume Sam and Tucker do; what about your family?”
“They know. Jazz found out a few months after, but it took my parents until my senior year. Ultimately it was the lack of aging that tipped them off to something being up…” In retrospect, wearing the same thing for picture day each year hadn’t been as funny as Danny thought. Danny continued, “Which is why I didn’t want to come to this tonight, but Sam and Tucker dragged me here.”
“And I guess it’s why no one’s seen you around? People were starting to wonder if you died, you know! Since your name’s listed on the Fentonworks website, but no one ever sees you.”
“Well, technically…”
Valerie winced. “Right, if you’re Phantom… Sorry, that was insensitive.”
“Nah, it’s fine,” Danny said with a wave, relieved at how well Valerie seemed to be taking things; he’d expected her to be a lot angrier. “I’ve made peace with it. Besides, it’s not like I’m fully dead—just partly. The ghosts call me a ‘halfa’.” Truthfully though, he felt more like a ghost these days—which apparently fit with what the world thought, as according to Frostbite halfas were considered a type of ghost according to Ghost Zone law, and the Human Realm laws about ecto-beings would classify them as such too based on ectoplasm levels. If anyone else figured out Danny wasn’t human, he wouldn’t bother to clarify, but Valerie knew about halfas already.
“Like Danielle,” Valerie said with a nod. “I’ve suspected Phantom—you—were one too, but didn’t make the final connection until tonight.”
“When I called you ‘Red’?”
“No, when you showed up looking like you’re still 14—the same age as Phantom looks, the same age you were when Phantom first appeared, the same age as when you had that mysterious accident that kept you out of school for a week.”
“Ah. Yeah. That.” Danny chuckled. “Yeah, definitely do not recommend having a ghost portal open up on top of you. I was told it was ‘a miracle I survived’, you know—ironic, since I technically didn’t, not fully.”
“Right…” Valerie shifted awkwardly. “So, um… Does this also explain why, even after our truce, after all this time, you still always tried to avoid me? As Phantom, when I’m patrolling as the Red Huntress. You were reducing the chance of me finding out?”
Danny sighed. “Yeah,” he admitted. “And it’s why I haven’t left the house in this form. It’s much easier for people to put two and two together now—I mean, two immortal teenagers, both named Danny, who are never seen alone together? You put it together immediately—I’m honestly surprised no one else here has yet, or at the very least realized I’m a ghost, given it’s Amity Park…” He sighed. “If it weren’t for my need to protect this place, I would move somewhere else, somewhere they don’t know me. Sam and Tucker both even offered to let me move in with them. But I can’t just abandon this town.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Valerie said. “I don’t know if I could bring myself to leave here, either. So you’ve really never gone outside as Fenton, after all these years?”
Danny nodded. “Yeah. Well, I’ve been on trips with my parents, but I haven’t been around Amity Park in human form for a while. Jazz says denial might have more to do with it at this point, since there’s no longer much risk if people find out, between all the work Sam’s done, my parents knowing, the GIW no longer attacking without just cause, and general sentiments around Phantom being positive.”
“Denial?”
“Yeah. Until tonight, seeing everyone here so different, it was easy to pretend I wasn’t going to eternally be 14. But… Well, there’re people here who already are married, some with kids. I’ll… probably never have either of those. Sam had to get me this drink, because no bartender would ever believe my calendar age. I’ll likely be living with my parents until they die, and then will need to live with someone else, because once people find out I’m a ghost, well, new laws say that legally I’m forever considered a minor, so can’t live on my own.” Earlier that year, upon learning that ghosts stay the same mentally as when they died, the government passed that law, and now even Child Services had been pressuring child and teenage ghosts to get families, as well as encouraging them to at least complete high school. Not that that could really work if the ghost truly didn’t want to have a family, but a few ghosts like Youngblood and Ember had surprisingly been on board with it, at least for now.
There were some exceptions to minor laws when it came to ghosts though—for example, they could get jobs if they’d completed high school, regardless of age (good news for Danny, as humans under 15 couldn’t legally get a job, with some exceptions). Older ghosts had already started to get jobs as soon as the law started allowing it a few years prior, or enroll in colleges to get degrees at the few schools who started to allow that. It was definitely nice that society started to see ghosts as people, but it did now pose that issue of Danny legally eternally being a minor, at least until Sam managed to get it repealed (which might take a while, as that was a federal law whereas she currently was only in state government).
Valerie winced. “Ouch. I forgot about that law. Yeah, I can see how you’d want to avoid that as long as possible.”
“Yeah,” Danny said with a sigh.
After an awkward pause Valerie asked, “Doesn’t it get lonely?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I know you’re out as Phantom, but although you’re friendly with people I don’t see you genuinely hanging out with anyone, and if you’re home the rest of the time…”
“I still have Sam and Tucker,” Danny pointed out.
“Yeah but neither are around here often. Sam’s always off doing political stuff and Tucker’s frequently stuck on cases.” Oh, right; Valerie loosely kept in contact with them both, mostly thanks to a social media platform Danny forgot the name of (he refused to join one of those; people would notice if there were photo records of him not aging).
Danny shrugged. “I have ghost friends. You’ve seen me hanging out with them as Phantom.”
“Oh, right. Ember, Johnny, and Kitty, right?” Valerie said, sounding mildly irritated; her views on ghosts had eased up significantly, and those three caused much less trouble so she rarely fought with them anymore, but she clearly still didn’t like them. “You need more human friends.”
Danny crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? Who?”
“I’ve seen you hang with people at the arcade and stuff.”
“Yeah. And then they grow up and go away.”
“Danny, everyone grows up and goes away someday.”
“No, all humans do,” Danny reminded her, then gestured to himself. “Me? Not so much. For my 10th deathday”—Valerie winced at the term—“Clockwork’s ‘gift’ to me was glimpses into possible futures of what he called ‘good’ timelines, and some of the scenes were millenia away! Like, cool, humans colonize like eight different star systems and I get to meet aliens, and ghosts have full legal rights equivalent with humans and no discrimination, but four thousand years old? At that point, every human I know would literally be dust! Especially as he was very shady when I asked why none of those timelines showed Earth.”
“Okay, ignoring the implication that Earth might not exist in the relatively near future, and that you apparently know the Ghost God of Time well enough for him to give you… deathday… gifts, just because people will be gone in the future doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your time with them in the present, got it?”
“But—”
“No buts. Monday evening is $5 movie day at the movie theater by my apartment, and you are going with me to see the new Deadpool movie.”
Danny blinked. “You want me to go with you to see a movie. About an immortal dead-ish dude. After I, also a dead-ish guy, told you I’ve been stressing about my own immortality.”
Valerie looked stunned, like she hadn’t thought of that, then sheepishly said, “Sorry. We can see the new Avengers movie instead? I think that’s still playing; I saw it, but wouldn’t mind seeing it again.”
Danny laughed and shook his head. “No, no, I was just joking. Deadpool is fine, really. I’ve actually been wanting to see that one, and I also already saw the Avengers one.”
“Cool. Two caveats though: first, you have to go as Fenton; and second, no sneaking in invisibly, either!”
Danny winced. “You know I do that?”
Valerie gave Danny a flat look. “Dude, the entire town, including the theater, knows you do that. They have ghost sensors. They only don’t say anything because the civilians found out a year after Phantom first appeared and started a donation system to pay for your tickets—which the theater recently capped because it’s currently high enough for you to see a movie a week for the next two years.”
Danny paled. “Oh,” he said. He’d had no idea about that. He wondered if he should keep using that now that it was apparently an established thing, or if he should try to get people to stop and start paying himself. Knowing the town, though, they’d insist anyway, probably seeing it as a way to pay for Phantom’s services to the town (he already got free food at Nasty Burger and an all-access pass to the water park, among other perks that various businesses insisted upon despite him trying to refuse).
“So, you’re in?”
Danny sighed. Knowing Valerie, if he didn’t show she’d find him and drag him there, in an ecto-proof net if needed.”Yeah, I’m in,” he said.
Valierie grinned. “Great! Looking forward to it.”
“Right,” Danny said, then after another slightly-less-awkward silence said, “So, what now?”
“I guess we go back inside,” Valerie said. She took Danny’s hand this time, not his wrist, and led him back, to his confusion.
“Not that I’m opposed, but why are you holding my hand?” Danny asked.
Valerie blushed and let go. “Sorry. Instinct I guess.”
“Instinct…? Oh,” Danny realized, wilting slightly. He looked 14. Jazz had started doing that sometimes too, treating him like an actual kid before realizing immediately that he wasn’t.
“Sorry,” Valerie said again, looking guilty.
“It’s fine,” Danny waved off, even though he wasn’t. It was why he stopped visiting Sam and Tucker at their workplaces in human form; those that worked with them, who hadn’t known him before, always treated him as a kid, even assuming he was their little brother or cousin, which Sam and Tucker never refuted because it was unusual for those in their late 20s to be friends with a 14-year-old.
Of course, when they finally reentered the building, and Danny began to wander around the banquet hall in search of Sam and Tucker, disaster struck.
And by disaster, Danny didn’t mean a ghost: he meant Wes Weston. He’d forgotten that that guy might be there; he’d moved to Amity Park in Danny’s junior year, and had almost immediately theorized that Danny was Phantom. Like a modern-day Cassandra, everyone had dismissed his claims, but he only stopped once they graduated and he moved away, headed to college in Louisiana; recently, he’d become a paranormal investigator with his own TV show, focused on hauntings surrounding unsolved mysteries. People still didn’t take him seriously, thinking it was all staged, but it was nevertheless a surprisingly popular show with high ratings, likely due more to the true crime aspect rather than the ghost part (even though he was definitely getting real ghosts on film, thanks to special cameras developed by Fentonworks—outside of high-ecto-rich environments, or without returning to such a place periodically, most ghosts appeared as shades, and the ones Wes found tended to be those who stayed near where they died given their ‘unfinished business’ (read: obsession) was trying to get someone to solve their unsolved death).
Wes noticed Danny, and grinned like a cat who caught the canary as he walked over with purpose. “Ha!” He said loudly, pointing at Danny. “Look at that! The final proof needed to reveal your true identity!” A few people turned to look, then ignored Wes, as usual.
Danny grinned. “People still don’t believe you,” he said, highly amused.
“Oh come on, surely they noticed how you look!?”
Danny then thought of something that would maybe get Wes to leave him alone. He scowled. “Really, Wes? Picking on a kid?”
“What?” Wes asked, confused. “You’re not—”
“Legally I am,” Danny interjected, fake scowl morphing into a shit-eating grin as he crossed his arms. “Right? Surely you’ve seen the new laws. Do you really want to be that guy caught harassing a kid?”
“New laws… Oh! So you admit it, then,” Wes said smugly. “You’re a ghost. You’re Phantom.”
“No one will believe you, at least on the second part,” Danny said with a small shrug, getting an idea. He activated a certain power.
“But they’ll believe you’re a ghost! That’ll be the first step!”
“Eh, maybe, maybe not. You know how oblivious Amity Parkers can be.”
“Yeah, but this is too obvious! The only thing more obvious would be if you were floating or something.”
Danny raised an eyebrow and with an amused smile pointed down; Wes’s eyes followed the prompt, then widened as he realized Danny was floating about a half foot above the floor. Annoyingly, this didn’t put Danny at higher than the redheaded man’s chest-height; Wes was tall!
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Wes said blankly. “Seriously?” He frantically looked around. “How is no one seeing this!?”
Danny shrugged. “Like I said; Amity Parkers are oblivious.” He floated back down to the floor, then ran his tongue over his teeth, intentionally revealing the fangs to Wes.
Wes pointed at them, mouth agape. “When did you get those?!”
Danny shrugged. “Like, a year after high school. Some hockey ghost shot a puck at me, it knocked my front teeth out. They grew back overnight like usual, except this time my canines decided to be fangs.” He casually shrugged. “I don’t really question stuff like that anymore. At least there’s nothing super strange like pointed ears or forked tongue, right?”
“Fangs are just as strange on a human! Hell, plenty of people intentionally get pointed ears and forked tongues. Fangs are less usual—unless you’re a ghost!”
Danny frowned. “Who are you hanging around that ‘plenty of people’ do those things? Well, whatever.” He shrugged again. “Vampires are in right now, so if anything this just gives me cool points.”
“You’re not a vampire though, you’re a ghost!”
“Says you.”
“Says reality!”
“Need some help here?” a deep voice asked, and Danny immediately set back onto the ground; he and Wes both turned to see a lean average-height and extremely attractive man in a suit, red hair cropped short in a military style. Clipped on his belt under the open suit jacket there was a glimpse of a gun—a real one, not an ecto-weapon—and a shiny badge.
“Uh, no, we’re—” Danny cut himself off, doing a double-take when he saw the name tag. “Mikey?!”
“Danny,” Mikey said. “It’s been a while. Wes still bothering you?” He spoke very professionally, which made sense as his job listed on the tag was ‘NCIS Special Agent’. Danny wasn’t sure what NCIS was, but it must be a government organization—Danny could never keep track of all of those. It vaguely maybe sounded familiar.
“I can handle Wes,” Danny muttered.
“Are you sure? Because I could very easily take him in if he’s causing any trouble,” he said, giving Wes a Look.
Wes winced. “No trouble here. I was, er, just going,” he said, then scrambled off.
“Dude. What do you have on him?” Danny asked incredulously.
Mikey chuckled. “I caught him sneaking onto a decommissioned Naval ship yesterday, looking for ghosts. I let him go since I knew he wasn’t trying to cause trouble, but he knows if he does anything else I will report him.” Oh, right, that’s what it was—the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Huh; Mikey was the last person Danny would expect that of.
Sam joined the two. “Mikey?!” she proclaimed. “Wow!”
“Hi, Sam!” Mikey said. “Wow. You know, if it weren’t for the whole politician thing, I wouldn’t recognize you!”
“Me? What about you! Like, wow yourself!”
“Okay, I get it, you’re both hot, like practically everyone here,” Danny said, waving his hand in a sweeping gesture, a little frustrated.
Sam sighed. “Danny…” she trailed, though seemed unsure what more to say. She was well aware of his insecurities about his looks, and dismay over never having completed puberty.
“Hey, I’m sure you’ll start looking your age someday,” Mikey said, correctly guessing the issue as he put his hand on Danny’s shoulder in what Danny was sure was an effort to be comforting, but any comfort was ruined by Mikey scrunching his brow in confusion and lifting his hand away as though burned—likely surprised by the iciness Danny was giving off, which had significantly increased due to his stress. Mikey looked Danny over again, paying attention to Danny’s chest, which Danny belatedly realized wasn’t moving—he’d been either cooped up or in Phantom form so often that he’d gotten used to simply not breathing, as it wasn’t needed, and forgot to fake it; well, too late now. “Or maybe not…” Mikey muttered under his breath, looking mildly concerned, then began to ask bluntly, “Danny, are you—” before cutting himself off. “Sorry, forget it, that’s probably rude to ask.”
Danny sighed, aware of what Mikey had realized and was about to ask. “It’s okay. The answer’s yes. Since the summer before freshman year of high school. I’ve been trying to hide it, but I guess I really can’t anymore.”
Mikey raised his eyebrows. “All through high school? Wow. It's pretty impressive that you managed to hide it from everyone all that time.” He was taking the revelation better than Danny expected; or maybe it was simply because of his profession leading him to gain an ability to maintain a calm demeanor despite internal distress.
Danny shrugged. “Honestly? Amity Park’s just oblivious. Half the time I just stuck my arm through my locker to grab things, and no one gave it a second look.”
“I see,” Mikey said, putting his hand on his chin, looking contemplative. “So in that case… was Wes right after all?”
Danny sighed. “Well, I guess more people will start to realize soon anyway; might as well confirm it. Yeah, Wes was right.”
Mikey let out a low whistle. “All this time. Wow.” Then, he grinned. “Well, guess I should be saying ‘thank you’; you’re a real hero, you know. Saved everyone so many times!”
Danny smiled at that. “Thanks, Mikey.”
“Hey! Fenton!” came another voice as Mikey wandered off, a voice Danny couldn’t recall. Up to them walked two women: the one who had spoken was a voluptuous redhead whose nametag called her ‘Brittany’ with the occupation ‘CHS Librarian’, and a dark-skinned brunette whose nametag identified her as ‘Ashely’ with her nametag saying she was ‘CHS Teacher’. No subject was specified, as expected; Casper High still had issues hiring teachers, so they all taught multiple subjects, with the exception of the chemistry teacher, who was a ghost now (she loved teaching so much that she came back specifically to continue doing such, and although when she started there were still laws against having ghost employees no one had the heart to tell her to leave; thankfully now those laws had been reversed).
“We were hoping you’d show here,” Ashley said.
“What’s up?” Danny asked, memories of the girls now coming back to him. They’d barely been acquaintances, just sharing a few classes. But, since they both worked at Casper High, Danny had a feeling he knew what they wanted… “Wait, let me guess: Principal Lancer wanted you to talk to me?”
“Well, you have been ignoring his emails and calls,” Brittany pointed out.
Danny winced. “Ah, well, kinda been busy…”
Ashley scoffed. “What, with staying cooped up at your parents’ all day? Seriously, like, it’s ridiculous. We know you work there, but the teachers miss you—your sister’s stopped by, and so have your friends, but never you. Lancer’s actually been getting worried; your parents had to talk to him to assure him you were okay.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that,” Danny said, now feeling slightly guilty. “But, as to the emails, I got them, and I just… don’t really know how to reply,” he admitted. “I mean, it actually sounds interesting, but…”
“But what?” Ashley asked. “It can’t be a scheduling thing; your parents said you don’t have set hours since it’s inventing stuff!”
“Come on, please?” Brittany said. “The ecto-science teacher is retiring, and if you can’t do it the GIW will send someone in, and the past few from there have totally sucked.”
Danny considered how to answer. He really didn’t want to teach teenagers when he technically was still one himself. “I don’t have a teaching license,” he decided upon.
“The school is willing to pay for it,” Ashley answered automatically, apparently prepared with the answer.
Danny chewed his lip slightly, inadvertently revealing fangs; the two girls seemed to notice but didn’t say anything. Well, they’d probably figure it out, so Danny told them, “Unfortunately, no colleges that offer teaching degrees would accept me.”
Ashley frowned. “What, is it about grades? Because you do have a degree in ecto-engineering; I’m sure they’d look at that first, not the high school transcript.”
“Grades… aren’t the issue,” Danny told them. They’d been for his first degree, until he found the enigmatic Miskatonic University of Arkham, Massachusetts, had an online program—their dean was secretly a ghost and very understanding of Danny’s struggles as a halfa.
“Then what is it?”
“The law still lets them discriminate,” Danny explained; he could try to pretend he was human, but if he was discovered, he’d be in major legal trouble.
“Discriminate? For what?” Brittany asked, looking confused, as did Ashley.
“Is it really not obvious?” Danny asked, making his eyes glow and floating slightly as he looked at them.
“Oh,” Brittany said quietly. “That’s why you still look…”
“Well, then, you can teach without the degree,” Ashley said, still determined. “I mean, the school is so short-staffed they don’t really care at this point, and technically there’s no legal requirement for a teacher to have a teaching degree. Your ecto-engineering degree and general Fenton knowledge of the subject should be enough. Plus, the class is about ghosts, so who better to teach it than a ghost?”
Danny raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. “You really think Lancer would go for that?”
“Of course!”
“Even if I’m technically still 14?”
The two looked surprised to be given an age of death.
“You’ve been a ghost since…” Brittany trailed off, clearly not expecting the number to be that low.
“Oh my gosh. That’s, like, as long as we’ve known you!” Ashley said with a gasp.
“Yeah,” Danny confirmed.
“Well, I’m sure Lancer would still go for it,” Brittany decided. “But, like, maybe go talk to him? He probably should find out about this”—she made a vague gesture towards Danny—“from you.”
“I guess,” Danny said with a sigh. He probably shouldn’t have ignored all those emails and calls, considering Lancer apparently had talked to his parents to see if his schedule would allow it and then recruited two others to confront him. He glanced at the clock; barely past 7pm, and the reunion gala went from 6-10, so he could take a break to do it now… And he sure needed a break from all this.
William Lancer had just sat down in his armchair with a mug of tea and a book when a knock sounded at his door. He frowned, glancing at the clock. It wasn’t too late, but he didn’t exactly have anyone who would pay him a surprise visit. Still, he should answer it; there was always the possibility it was the police, or more likely GIW given it was Amity Park, and the latter still had a penchant for breaking down doors if one didn’t answer quickly enough.
Lancer sighed, put his book and mug down on the coffee table, and made his way to the door, opening it to find…
“Mister Fenton? Wait, no, it can’t be…” Lancer scrunched his brow in confusion. The person standing there looked almost identical to Daniel Fenton, but a teenage version—he would be 27 by now.
“Actually, yes, it is,” the boy—Daniel Fenton?—said.
“Picture of Dorian Gray,” Lancer whispered, staring at Daniel, unsure how to react.
Daniel(?!) shifted nervously. “Sorry if the timing’s inconvenient; Brittany and Ashley approached me at the reunion, and I realized it’s probably been really rude to keep ignoring your attempts to contact me… So, I’m here.”
“You left the reunion to come see me?” Lancer asked, mildly confused.
Daniel shrugged. “I kinda needed a break. It got a little overwhelming. Is it okay if I come in, or do you want to talk like this?”
“Oh, yes, come in, come in,” Lancer said, stepping back from the door and gesturing him inside. “I’ll get you a cup of tea; make yourself comfortable on the couch.”
Before the boy (man?) could confirm or deny wanting the tea, Lancer was already headed to the kitchen to get him a mug, mind spinning.
Daniel Fenton looked identical to how he had in high school. To how he had the entirety of high school, now that Lancer thought about it. Was this why he’d been dodging Lancer’s attempts to contact him about the teaching position? Was this why he had never visited the school since graduating, as many of his peers had? Was this why he had shut himself in at home all those years, to the point there were rumors about him being dead?
…The Mist in the Mirror! That was it, wasn’t it? Daniel was dead. A ghost. That was the only explanation…
No. No, there must be another reason. Perhaps an experiment gone wrong, one that stunted his growth? Or perhaps time-travel; some portals in the Ghost Zone were rumored to cut across time itself. Maybe a cloning project that resulted in someone much younger, and the original Daniel was still at home?
Well, surely Daniel would tell Lancer about whatever the situation was. Lancer returned to the living room with the tea and handed it to Daniel.
Daniel gave the mug a sniff, then his eyebrows raised in surprise. “Chocolate tea? That’s different.” He took a sip, which was followed up by a pleased fanged smile. “Oh, that’s really good!” His eyes lit up as he said it—literally lit up, glowing green.
Lancer’s heart sunk; that was proof enough that Daniel was indeed a ghost, wasn’t it? Only ectoplasm had that toxic color.
“You okay?” Daniel asked, apparently catching on to Lancer’s mood.
“Ah, yes, I just…” Lancer wasn’t sure how to begin. “Daniel, are…” he didn’t want to voice it. “Are you a…”
“Ghost?” Daniel finished, then sighed. “I was hoping to ease you into it, but yeah. Have been since the summer before freshman year.”
“City of Ghosts! How did I not notice?”
“Well, I hid it,” Daniel said gently. “I didn’t want anyone to know, not even my parents—now they know, but back then I was kinda terrified they wouldn’t accept me for it, given… Given the other form I have.”
“Other form?” Lancer asked, curious.
Daniel nodded. “I have a ghost form and a human form… Don’t freak out, but…” A bright white ring circled Daniel’s waist, splitting and moving up and down. When it finished, none other than Danny Phantom was sitting in his place—or rather, hovering a few inches above the couch.
Lancer found himself speechless for a moment, then eked out, “Well this certainly explains some things regarding your high school performance.”
Daniel laughed, voice echoing in the way that ghosts’ voices did. “Yeah, attendance and homework kinda takes a backseat when your ghostly drive is to protect the town, and so many other ghosts keep attacking it, or just showing up to fight you for sport whether you want to fight or not. Plus the whole ‘Public Enemy #1’ and the GIW and other ghost hunters constantly looking for me, and having to watch out for or sabotage all the ghost traps and stuff they set up around town. By senior year those things started being able to detect me in human form, and the improved shields worked on it too, so that was fun.”
“The Maze Runner. If I had known back then…”
Daniel shifted back into his human form and said, “Well, you had no way of knowing; no use regretting it, especially since that was so long ago. Things worked out, kinda. I was able to get a college degree, and I like my job, even if it is working for my parents. It’s not NASA, which I dreamed about as a kid, but that was out the moment I became a ghost.”
“Right… a ghost… meaning you…” Died, was the word Lancer couldn’t say.
“I’d prefer not to talk about that part,” Daniel said. Understandably so, Lancer realized—mentioning it was probably rude.
Lancer winced. “Apologies, that was insensitive.”
Daniel shook his head. “No, it’s fine, I get it. You’re still processing things; it’s not every day you learn your former student’s a ghost.”
“And was a ghost during the entire time he was my student,” Lancer said somberly.
“Yeah.”
After a short pause, silence not uncomfortable, simply Daniel giving Lancer some time to process, a thought occurred to Lancer, and he told Daniel with a small smile, “You know, you being a ghost only makes you more desirable as a teacher of ecto-science.”
Daniel frowned. “I guess?” He sighed. “Look, I’m actually not opposed to doing some teaching—not a whole day, but maybe half—But there are some issues related to that.”
“If you need to leave to do Phantom-related—”
“No, not that,” Daniel said with a dismissive wave. “My parents are actually pretty competent now, and should be capable of handling most ghost issues, they can be on-call while I teach. There’s also the Red Huntress. This issue is more with…” he gestured to himself, “...this.”
“What do you mean?” Lancer asked. “Legally ghosts can work, even when looking younger provided they have a high school diploma, which you do have.”
“I know. It’s not just that; it’s the teaching degree. I literally can’t get a teaching degree anywhere right now, not in the US. No teaching school would accept me—and not because of grades or anything, I actually did pretty well when getting my ecto-engineering degree, but because it’s still legal for them to discriminate against ghosts and too many people have been protesting against ghosts being in careers related to kids.”
“You raise a good point, but you also forget this is Amity Park,” Lancer told Daniel with a small smile. “We already have a ghost teacher, and almost everyone has been fine with it. Plus, the degree you already have should be enough; we’ll treat it like a college professor, where the subject degree is the only important one. I have no doubt the school board will be perfectly okay with that, particularly given the other options for instructors.” They’d probably even be happy about having another ghost staff member, given that legally they’ll never reach retirement age, thus no pension will need paying into, nor do they need health insurance, both which would save the school money. Lancer opted not to mention that though.
Daniel took a moment to consider this. “You’re going to have a counter for every argument against this, aren’t you?” he said with an amused smile. “Final question, then: do you want me to teach as Fenton or Phantom?”
“Well, Fenton is the one with the degree,” Lancer pointed out. “Although if you’ll be more comfortable being out in public as Phantom, I’m sure something can be worked out.”
Daniel nodded. “I’ll have to think about it… actually, no, I don’t. I’ll do it as Fenton. It’s about time I stop hiding.”
“Even if it means your identity will likely be revealed?”
Daniel sighed. “Yeah. It already pretty much is; some people at the reunion are definitely drawing connections… Speaking of, I probably should get back there, before Sam and Tucker think I legit bailed on it.”
“Of course,” Lancer said with an understanding nod. “Well, thank you for accepting the teaching position; I look forward to seeing you in the fall.”
“Oh no, I’ll be seeing you before then,” Daniel informed Lancer with a smug grin. “I know nothing about being a teacher—so you’re going to teach me.”
Lancer raised an eyebrow and gave an amused smile. “Oh? Daniel Fenton is actually asking to attend a class run by me? Will you be rushing out the door during this one, too?”
“Only if there’s a ghost fight Val—crap, I mean, the Red Huntress, can’t handle! Anyway, see you later,” Daniel hurriedly said, waving goodbye as he hopped into the air, transformed, and flew off through the wall…
Leaving Lancer to come to the realization that another one of his ex-students, Valerie Grey, had also been fighting since the age of 14, this time as the enigmatic vigilante ghost hunter known as the Red Huntress.
Lancer sighed, heading back to the kitchen; he was going to require a lot more tea after all this.
Danny returned to the reunion, which had about an hour and a half left before the official end time, to discover not just that more people had arrived but also that Wes had been running around screaming that he had been right… Only for people to still not believe him.
“Wes is cursed or something, isn’t he?” Danny asked Sam as he casually floated over to her and Tucker, a half foot above the floor—he was sick of feeling so short around everyone. Plus he totally expected everyone would know by now, not be arguing with Wes.
“Looks like it,” Sam said, then looked down at Danny’s feet before looking back at his face as she raised an eyebrow. “Thinking maybe you are as well; how long have you been floating?”
“Since getting back like two minutes ago,” Danny said. “I floated through the whole hall and no one said anything. And before I left I was talking with Wes, floating just to taunt him, and again, oblivious.”
“Star knows, by the way,” Tucker revealed. “Just the ghost part, not, you know. She asked me about it after you left—speaking of, where did you go?” he wondered.
“Oh. A couple of the teachers confronted me, Lancer apparently really wants me to teach,” Danny explained, not commenting on Star knowing his secret; he had a feeling she’d figure it out, always being much cleverer than anyone gave her credit for. “So I went to talk with him to explain why I can’t… and he convinced me to. So, introducing Casper High’s new part-time ecto-science teacher!”
Tucker tilted his head, considering that. “You know what, I think it suits you,” he concluded.
“You’re great with kids; you’ll definitely make a good teacher,” Sam agreed.
“No, I’m great at being a kid,” Danny clarified. “Forever being a kid.”
“And you’ll still be a good teacher despite that,” Sam said. “You have grown mentally since you were in school, you know. Maybe technically your brain hasn’t grown, but your life experiences and knowledge have led to some mental maturity. You’re definitely more responsible than you used to be.”
“Only because I’ve learned to ignore all the teenage impulsivity and whatnot,” Danny pointed out. “My brain still wants to be reckless, I just don’t let it.”
“Exactly my point! You’ve grown mentally. Ten years ago you’d never have held back on that. Now you do. You’ve got this, Danny.”
“If you say so,” Danny said, floating a little higher and looking around. “But I mean, isn’t floating in the middle of humans kinda reckless?”
“Well, you are a ghost,” someone said from behind Danny, and he turned to see Dash. “So it, like, makes sense you’d prefer to float rather than fake walking, right?”
Danny looked at Dash, surprised. “Wait, so people did notice?”
“Dude, the entire football team realized you were a ghost by your senior year of high school; why do you think we stopped bullying you?” Dale, who was standing beside Dash, revealed. He was wearing similar attire to the football star, but for the Chicago Cubs baseball team, which he’d somehow made it onto despite Casper High’s baseball team having the worst losing streak in the country for twenty years straight.
“Um. I thought you’d just matured?” Danny tried. “Wait, who else knows? Because not everyone knew; earlier a bunch of people didn’t.” Kwan had seemed to, come to think of it; or at least, he had been the first besides Dash to not mention Danny’s perceived age, or even seem surprised at it.
“I mean, as far as I know, just the football team,” Dash said. “Dale here set up a camera to figure out who was leaving him anonymous notes in his locker, and when the team reviewed it together we realized it caught you phasing out of a locker you’d been shoved in. We all decided to stay silent about it though, didn’t even tell Paulina; figured it was probably pretty disrespectful to try to expose a ghost trying to hide as a human, if he wasn’t bothering anyone.”
“Oh. That’s, er, oddly nice of you,” Danny said with surprise. Too bad Wes did not share that sentiment.
“Yeah…” Dash shifted nervously. “Um. I know this is probably super rude to ask, but it’s been really bugging me for years, since we discovered it really. It wasn’t… it wasn’t my fault, was it? Or anyone on the team’s?”
Danny scrunched his brow in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I mean, we bullied you pretty badly, and you seemed super tired and down a lot, and—”
“No, it wasn’t that,” Danny said, catching on. “It was an accident in my parents’ lab.”
Dash visibly relaxed. “Oh, good—I mean, not good that you died, definitely not, but really glad it wasn’t because of, well, you know.”
“Yeah, same,” Danny said. “But I guess I should thank you—you didn’t have to keep my secret.”
Dash shrugged. “Like I said, it seemed disrespectful not to. Like, we’re not Wes.”
Dale added, “Plus at that point Phantom was defending ghosts too, and we didn’t want to make him mad, like if you told him about it or something.”
“Maybe for you,” Dash said, nose scrunching in annoyance, “I was more concerned that we had caused it.”
“That’s… oddly touching, Dash,” Danny said, realizing that once again although they realized he was a ghost they didn’t know he was Phantom. That seemed to be an ongoing trend.
Some other former-football-team member then signalled to Dash and Dale, who wandered over there.
“Huh. I was wondering why Dash had that sudden change of heart senior year about his bullying ways,” Tucker commented.
“Same,” Sam said, “but I’m a little concerned that it took thinking he may have driven someone to suicide to bring him to that change of heart.”
“Well, at least he got there eventually,” Danny said with a shrug.
Star then appeared again, holding her kid, along with Paulina. She handed Emily off to Tucker as her daughter was making grabby-hands towards him.
“So,” Paulina said, looking at Danny, seeming unhappy for some reason. “Star seems to think that there is in fact a reason that you look so young, not just genetics, but won’t tell me what it is, so I’m asking you, again. What is your secret to looking so young?!”
“It… is it not obvious?” Danny asked incredulously, again gesturing down to himself, and shifting so he was sitting cross-legged in the air.
“Oh! You invented something that lets you float, and as a side-effect it made you look young!”
Danny blinked, processing that. He ran his tongue over his fangs as he thought; he was tempted to say yes just to mess with her, but then surely she’d just keep harping on him to tell her about it. So he simply said, “Uh. No. Not at all.” He made his eyes glow in hopes she’d actually catch on; once she knew, the secret would quickly spread, which Danny was hoping for given he really didn’t want to have another twenty conversations involving people figuring it out. He wanted to learn about their lives since high school, as was half the point of a reunion!
“Then the reverse?”
Danny couldn’t help but slide his hand down in face in exasperation; maybe then she’d see the eyes and fangs and draw the correct conclusion? “No… Paulina, come on. You grew up in Amity Park. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure it out.”
Paulina narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips as she thought. “Ectoplasm in the water? No, then the whole town would be, or at least your family… Okay, it’s gotta be an invention.”
“No—well, technically an invention caused it, but it’s not… the invention wasn’t meant to do that.”
“Oh, so a side effect? But not for the floating, that was a different invention?”
“No! Paulina, come on.” Danny looked to Star. “Do I need to just tell her?”
“At this point? Probably,” Star said with a resigned sigh.
“Yeah, just tell me!” Paulina said. “You can’t keep this anti-aging invention to yourself.”
“It’s not… it’s not an invention, it’s been around for billions of years…” Danny trailed, baffled at Paulina’s inability to catch on. Was she drunk?
“Uh, no, if it were, I’d have heard of it.”
“You have heard of it.”
“Then what is it?!”
“Death! It’s literally death, Paulina!” Danny exclaimed, swinging his hands out in emphasis. “I died. That’s why I’m not aging. That’s why I’m floating. That’s why I have fangs and glowing eyes. I’m dead! I’m a ghost! Have been since we were 14!”
“Oh,” Paulina said, seeming mostly unphased. “That… makes sense, I guess,” she said, sounding disappointed that it wasn’t something her beauty company could use, then paused. Seemingly realizing something, she then said, “My condolences?”
“It’s, er, fine,” Danny said awkwardly. “I got over it.”
“Hmm,” Paulina hummed, then said, “You know, it’s too bad you didn’t tell anyone back when we were in school; the ghost thing totally, like, doubles your hotness.”
Danny, Star, Tucker, and Sam simultaneously groaned and facepalmed; Emily watched them, then giggled and put her hand on her face too.
At least Danny’s plan was successful; thanks to Paulina, by the end of the night every single person at the reunion was aware that Danny Fenton was a ghost, and had been for more than a decade. Yet still, the only new people to have learned he was Phantom had been Valerie, Lancer, and Mikey (who upon realizing that no one else had drawn the connection promised Danny unprompted that he’d keep it secret), even though Wes was still practically screaming the truth at people (yup, he was definitely cursed).
By the time classes began that fall, the entire town also knew that Danny Fenton was a ghost, yet still Phantom’s identity miraculously remained largely a mystery. Of course, now that Fenton would be teaching the same teens that he hung out with as Phantom, it would only be a matter of time until the students figured things out… right?